ACADEMIC BIO
Dr. Sará King is a UCLA-trained political and learning scientist, neuroscientist, entrepreneur, public speaker, and yoga and meditation instructor.
She specializes in researching and teaching about the relationship between mindfulness, community healing, and social justice.
Sará received a B.A. in Linguistics, and a B.A. in Black Studies from Pitzer College in 2005, minoring in Spanish.
Afterwards, she received a Masters in Afro-American Studies and Political Science from U.C.L.A., where she concentrated in Education. During her M.A. program, she studied the politics of the post-racial phenomenon and it’s implications for pervasive educational inequalities.
Recently, she earned her Ph.D. in Education at U.C.L.A. in 2017, in their division of Urban Schooling, where she concentrated in anthropology and neuroscience to develop her methodological approach as a mixed-methods researcher and ethnographer.
Sará is honored to have been mentored by her advisors Dr. Thomas Philip (U.C.L.A.) and Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang (U.S.C.) during her doctoral program. Her dissertation research examined the way low-SES urban students express resilience and navigate interpersonal relationships in the context of a school-based yoga and meditation intervention.
Her dissertation explored the manner in which anti-oppression and restorative justice pedagogical and intervention techniques are necessary components of the movement for social justice in schools, making history as the very first in U.C.L.A.’s department of education to explore the impact of yoga and meditation in urban schools from a critical theorist/anti-oppression point of view.
While at U.C.L.A., she has had the privilege to conduct research for the David Geffen School of Medicine in their Cardiology Division on how mindfulness impacts the doctor-patient relationship in heart transplant patients, as well as with the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior on the impact of yoga and meditation school-based interventions on student stress and academic performance.
Sará was also a Teaching Fellow in the Communication Studies department, as well as a graduate student researcher for the Teacher Education Program through U.C.L.A.’s Department of Education, where she worked on issues related to praxis regarding student and teacher racial identity and classroom engagement.
She has also been the recipient of funding from the U.C. Regents to conduct her own research on student empathy, culturally relevant pedagogical practices, and the relationship between yoga, meditation and student emotional health.
Recently, she was identified as a education innovation thought leader by New Schools Venture Fund, an education philanthropic organization dedicated to identifying and supporting diverse leaders in education.
Sará was also recently a participant in the Dalai Lama’s Mind and Life Institute Inaugural International Research Institute in Kyoto, Japan. Here, she was one of 75 thought leaders and scholars in the field of meditation research invited to discuss the the latest advances in research in neuroscience, psychology, and Buddhist philosophy to produce innovative approaches in the advancement of contemplative studies.
She currently works as a research assistant and consultant for the groundbreaking progenitor of the field of interpersonal neurobiology, neuropsychiatrist Dr. Dan Siegel through his MindSight Institute.
YOGA, MINDFULNESS & MEDITATION BIO
As a former college athlete on the Pomona-Pitzer dive team, and life-long lover of movement and dance, Dr. King has always been fascinated with the relationship between wellness and embodied healing practices. She has been an avid student-practitioner of vinyasa yoga, as well as a student of Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism for 14+ years.
Her passion for studying contemplative practices and yoga led her to complete the 200 hr. Awakened Heart, Embodied Mind yoga teacher training at Exhale Yoga with Julian Walker and Hala Khouri. In this program she was trained to teach yoga in a trauma-sensitive way that incorporates an understanding of somatic therapy and neuroscience.
Following her 200 hr. yoga teacher training, she completed a 6-week training in mindfulness meditation at U.C.L.A. through their Mindful Awareness Research Center.
Afterwards, she completed a 5-day Yoga, Purpose and Action Leadership Intensive with Off The Mat Into the World, with Hala Khouri, Seane Corn, and Susan Sterling where she deepened her understanding about the relationship between social justice practices and yoga.
Dr. King has also completed a year long 500 hr. Advanced Mindfulness, Yoga, and Meditation Teacher training at Spirit Rock in Marin, CA with Anne Cushman, Philip Moffitt and Jill Satterfield (to name a few of the core teaching staff).
In total, she has completed 77 days of vipassana/silent meditation retreat practice in the Buddhist/Insight Meditation lineage. She is dedicated to maintaining a daily meditation and yoga practice as an integral part of deepening her personal practice and ability to live what she teaches.
During her spare time, she teaches workshops on mindfulness and self-care, as well as the relationship between social justice, yoga, and meditation, most notably in the past at U.C.L.A. and at Green Tree Yoga and Meditation in South Los Angeles.
She is very proud to be a community partner with the Yoga and Body Image Coalition. Through her relationship with the YBIC, she has participated in the “Conversation With Modern Yogis” panel discussion series, originally developed by Zubin Shroff, on the topic of the relationship between Yoga, Social Justice and Self Care.
She currently teaches evidence-based mindfulness meditation seminars in the corporate sector with WITHIN meditation, a company based out of San Francisco.
Dr. King is a proud wife and mother to one magical daughter – her family and sangha of friends inspire and motivate her to practice and to continue to open her heart more than anyone.
She loves spending time in and around the ocean (pretty much anywhere) and especially hiking through the redwood and oak forests of Northern California.
